Apologies for being a rarity on the site at the moment, I usually post at work, and its busy, but my manager has left early and this is import yay news! (if your me)
Last night I was at the Leeds uni folk session, it was bedlam as always and got messier then usual near the end, most of the audience had gone home and it fell to me and some of the other session regulars to ‘finish off the beer’. While mucking about between tunes (the room is so loud that no one can really hear me on the flute anyway) I rolled my lower lip further under then upper then usual – almost playing straight through my flute-beard* and, to my amazement I discovered the ‘sweet spot’ where-by the low octave is augmented with a stack-load of harmonics, producing that instantly recognisable ‘Irish-flute-played-by-someone-who-may-know-what-there-doing’ sound. I nearly jumped out of my seat!
I spent the next few minutes chatting and demonstrating with the guitarist (also a bit of a muso) verifying the apparent volume bump was due in-the-main to harmonics and not some cunningly hidden volume slider on the flute. The rest of the session (now completely ‘beyond reasonable use’ from a musical perspective) was spent with me playing pedal notes in the low octave.
The next few days in my household are going to be mostly accompanied by a low D as I train myself to do this trick every time
So a bit of a non story but i just though i would share the sence of celebration at this epiphany of sorts in the hope it serves to inspire others, plus, good news is rare these days.
(* if you don’t have a flute-beard, please get one, they are nigh on essential for successful trad-flauting)
congratulations! I wish I had some sort of tone to speak of… soon, you will also discover that use of contractions also greatly improves your [possessive] enjoyment of flute…
Congratulations. I’ve always had a beard and always trimmed out the soul patch until I started playing the flute and noticed before reading anything about the flute beard thingy and between trimming that this patch of hair helped matters.
i’ve noticed i get a better tone if i’m not forcing the barrel against my lip; i can see where a soul patch might help create just enough of a buffer to get a nice tone.
still not doing it though.
OP, i’m not sure i understand “rolled my lip farther under”–as a beginner still on a quest to get that ITM sound, i’m interested in what you discovered…
i read an article by Mr. McGee where he talked about how to get a darker tone you have to cover more of the hole with your bottom lip, is that what you’re talking about?
Interesting. A find that growth under the lower lip hurts like hell when the flute presses against it. Guess mine doesn’t grow long enough the get past that “ingrown hair” feeling.
I didn’t grow one till after I had passed puberty.
Seriously though, I hope that the OP’s experience is better than mine. Every time I got that “Yay, I’m getting a good tone” feeling I would find that after minutes, hours or a few days it had mostly evaporated. And when you are playing for other people, what matters is not the “best” tone that you sometimes get, but the worst one that also comes out from time to time. My “best” tone has progressed like a game of snakes and ladders, but I do take heart from the fact that the worst tone (you know, the one that you get when it really matters) has improved steadily, even if painfully slowly.
nice feeling when it sounds right, keep up the practice
You should find that holding it underneath a more covered lip, while blowing down more vertically, also flattens the pitch, so you can start pushing that tuning slide in a bit and still play in tune, try 8-10mm (if you can get it there it should improve the internal intonation of your flute across the scale - I’m just remembering that you had it pulled out a long way to compensate for blowing sharp). The flute I have that is very similar to yours was a real challenge to get sounding well but worth the perseverance. As Jem said of yours, a flute to ‘grow into’.
yeah this new tone is ruining the tuning… ill give this a go.
for the moment though, i humbally appologise for filling the gaps between sets with low D’s and manic laughter.
More focus, less push, and try dropping the embouchure a mm or so down your lip and blowing more downwards without rolling it in or covering significantly more of the hole (cover between 1/3 to 1/2 the hole). If you’re getting it that sharp it will probably be a combination of blowing too hard and having the hole too open/rolled out. That flute, so far as I recall, has classic mid C19th moderate flat foot. Try mirror examination concurrently with using a tuner to see what you do when you get the best tone and how sharp that is, and thence how you can amend the tuning while retaining the tone. Oh, and do it with medium to long sustained notes, not explosive short honks which are very likely to go sharp anyway.
Thanks for the tips Jem.
Ill have a go with this. Im off to a flute workshop in Manchester soon so hopefully whoever is leading it will be able to re-iterate the advice and ‘show’ me.
Its pretty heartbreaking at the moment, whenever i start a tune no one else can join in because its sharp. When ever i ‘get into’ a tune i go sharp, i cant swop to whistle because the tunes i get into are frequently littered with accidentals and swapping to the drum is an admission of defeat!
i think i need a flute-hug
im afraid as a matter of principle i dont play any instrument i cant successfully say when drunk
congrats! 
ah, grasshopper 
